The “Selfless Friendship” of Cuba’s Solidarity Groups

[Judi Lynn]

January 05, 2015

The Release of the Cuban Five

The “Selfless Friendship” of Cuba’s Solidarity Groups

by STEPHEN KIMBER


In the sweet afterglow of last month’s historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, much has been made of the pivotal roles played by Pope Francis, the Canadian government, New York Times editorialists, various American politicians and their aides, even “sperm diplomacy.”

All that is true, of course, but there are many other narratives in this larger tale too, perhaps none more compelling than the against-all-odds, never-say-never global campaign to “free the Cuban Five.” For a decade and a half, small, dedicated, disparate, sometimes competing groups of political activists in the United States and around the world have demonstrated, lobbied, lettered, conferenced, tribunaled, cajoled and hectored in a seemingly quixotic quest to win the release of five imprisoned Cuban men.

The Five were members of a Cuban intelligence network dispatched to South Florida in the 1990s to infiltrate and report back to Havana on Miami exile groups that were plotting — and carrying out — deadly terrorist attacks against their homeland. In June 1998, Cuban State Security shared the fruits of its intelligence on some of those plots — including one to blow up an airplane filled with beach-bound tourists — with American authorities. Three months later, the FBI swooped in and arrested… not the terrorists but the Cuban agents. Charged in hostile-to-all-things-Castro Miami and tried against the backdrop of an emotional child custody tug-of-war between Havana and Miami over the fate of rescued rafter child Elian Gonzàlez, the Five were summarily convicted and sentenced to unconscionably long terms in American prisons. The network’s leader, Gerardo Hernandez, received a double-life-plus-15-year sentence.

For the Cuban government, winning the release of the three members of the Five still in American prisons — each of them a certifiable, first-name-basis hero at home — was the sine qua non for everything else that happened Dec. 17: freeing American USAID contractor Alan Gross, handing over a Cuban national convicted of spying for the United States, agreeing to re-establish diplomatic relations with Washington and all the possibilities and perils that will inevitably flow from that…

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/05/the-selfless-friendship-of-cubas-solidarity-groups/

[delrem]

1. Meanwhile, the USA is sanctioning Venezuela. cool.

Nah, there couldn't be *any* connection between events, or propaganda points.

[flamingdem]

2. Sen. Menendez is already implying he'll block the appointment of an an ambassador

but as long as they can establish the embassy itself that's a big step forward.

Our favorite anti-Cubists are losing lots of sleep plotting how to disrupt the process.

It's really true about the Cuban Five supporters. They remained very focused.